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Nigeria: Two in Three Children Not Eating Right Food - NDHS

Two out of every three Nigerian child are not eating the right food suitable for their health, the latest National Demographic Health Survey reveals.

Revealing this at the start of a three-day capacity building workshop for health editors and reporters on challenges in the health and nutrition sector in Nigeria, organised by the Civil Society Sacling Up Nutrition un Nigeria (CS-SUNN) and PACFaH in Kaduna, the programme director CS-SUNN, Beatrice Eluaka said, malnutrition has become endemic in Nigeria and no part of the country is immune to the problem of malnutrition.

"Malnutrition is a major problem for both the poor and the rich. As it is recorded in Delta State, so it is in highbrow Ikoyi where 13% of the children are malnourished. In high agricultural rich northern region over 50 percent stunting rate [of children too short for their age] is recorded."

"We need to make sure that food is available and accessible to people and that's why we're focusing on nutrition security."

She said many of the children are fed with mostly carbohydrate and exclusive breastfeeding was not practised by many women.

Eluaka added that people should learn to make food their medicine now or else in future medicine becomes their food.

"We need to imbibe the habit of good nutrition. At every meal we need to eat all varieties in their right proportion for balanced diet."

The communication officer CS-SUNN Lilian Ajah-Mong said the capacity building workshop and field visit was to keep health editors and reporters abreast of issues related to malnutrition and how to go about reporting it.

"We need health to top the agenda when it comes to reporting. We are to release the facts that will help you in your reportage as a watchdog of the society," she said